Large shark kills man in New Zealand; beach closed

AUCKLAND, New Zealand (AP) — A shark has killed a man off a New Zealand beach that was closed after the rare attack there.

Head of Mexico's powerful teachers' union arrested

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The head of Mexico's powerful teachers' union was arrested at an airport outside Mexico City Tuesday for alleged embezzlement, with federal officials accusing her using union funds to pay for plastic surgery, buy a house in San Diego and even pay her bill at Neiman Marcus.

AP PHOTOS: A look at daily life inside North Korea

Few people from outside North Korea ever get to see, with their own eyes, what life is like inside the country's restrictive borders — scenes ranging from a simple haircut to a mass synchronized swimming performance.

Fiery balloon accident kills 19 tourists in Egypt

LUXOR, Egypt (AP) — The terror lasted less than two minutes: Smoke poured from a hot air balloon carrying sightseers on a sunrise flight over the ancient city of Luxor, it burst in a flash of flame and then plummeted about 1,000 feet to earth. A farmer watched helplessly as tourists trying to escape the blazing gondola leaped to their deaths.

Italy parties seek way out of election stalemate

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's stunned political parties searched for a way forward on Tuesday after an inconclusive election gave none of them a parliamentary majority and threatened prolonged instability and a renewal of the European financial crisis. The results, notably the dramatic surge of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement of comic Beppe Grillo, left the center-left bloc with a majority in the lower house but without the numbers to control the upper chamber, the Senate. ...

Cyclone intensifies, Australia's iron ore mines brace

PERTH (Reuters) - A powerful cyclone headed for Australia's Port Hedland, that has brought half the world's seaborne-traded iron ore to a halt, has intensified and is set to make landfall late on Wednesday, threatening to flood inland mine operations and rail links. Weather warnings extend as far as 500 kms (310 miles) inland to the massive mining camps and towns of Tom Price, Mt Newman and Nullagine, operated by Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Fortescue Metals Group. Hardest-hit areas could receive up to 600 millimeters, or 2 feet, of rain in 24 hours, said the Bureau of Meteorology. ...

Seven killed by Islamist car bomb in north Mali: MNLA

BAMAKO (Reuters) - Seven people were killed in a suicide car bomb attack by suspected Islamist militants in the remote northern Malian town of Kidal on Tuesday, the MNLA Tuareg rebel group said, in the second such attack there in less than a week. A spokesman for the Malian army, Modibo Nama Traore, confirmed that a car bomb had exploded in the town but was unable to provide further details. ...

Powers wait to hear Iran response to nuclear offer

ALMATY (Reuters) - World powers hope Iran will respond positively on Wednesday to their new offer to lift some sanctions if Tehran scales back nuclear activity the West fears could be used to build bombs. The United States, France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia presented the offer when their first meeting with Iran in eight months began in Almaty on Tuesday and the Islamic state was considering it, the powers' spokesman said. Western officials described the first day of talks as "useful". ...

Green Day's Armstrong comes clean on drink, prescription drugs

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong said alcohol and prescription drug abuse forced him into rehab last year after sessions when he would black out and have no memory of what he had done. "I couldn't predict where I was going to end up at the end of the night," Armstrong, 41, the lead vocalist and songwriter for the California punk rock band told Rolling Stone magazine in an interview. "I'd wake up in a strange house on a couch. I wouldn't remember how. It was a complete blackout," he said, opening up about years of addiction to drink and prescription drugs. ...

Justin Timberlake works with Marcus Mumford on Coen film music

(Reuters) - Justin Timberlake has brought his movie and music work together by teaming up with British singer Marcus Mumford from Grammy-winning folk band Mumford & Sons on the soundtrack for an upcoming Coen brothers film. Timberlake, 32, said in a British radio interview this week that he and Mumford worked with veteran T-Bone Burnett and folk band The Punch Brothers on the soundtrack for "Inside Llewyn Davis," a film directed by Joel and Ethan Coen and starring Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan. Mulligan married Mumford in April 2012. ...

Guitarist Dan Toler of Allman Brothers Band dies in Florida

(Reuters) - Guitarist Dan Toler, who played in the Allman Brothers Band in the late 1970s and 1980s, has died of Lou Gehrig's disease at his home in Sarasota, Florida, his manager said. Toler died on Monday and was in his early 60s, the manager, Glen Halverson, said. Toler and his late brother, drummer David "Frankie" Toler, played in several groups, including Dickey Betts & Great Southern. Dan Toler was part of the Allman Brothers Band from 1979 to 1982 and was featured on the group's albums "Enlightened Rogues," "Reach for the Sky" and "Brothers of the Road. ...

Watch: David Bowie's Music Video Stars Tilda Swinton

Bowie's song "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)" is a track on his first new album in 10 years.

Bowie is back to best on new album, critics say

LONDON (Reuters) - David Bowie's first album of new music in a decade sees the influential musician back to his best, critics said in reviews rushed out on Tuesday, two weeks before its release. "The Next Day", which hits stores in Britain on March 11 and a day later in the United States, could even be the "greatest comeback in rock'n'roll history", according to The Independent's Andy Gill. ...

Nick Lachey swaps boy band for fatherhood in lullaby album

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Singer Nick Lachey, a member of U.S. group 98 Degrees, has swapped his boy band heartthrob status to embrace fatherhood in a new album of lullabies dedicated to his baby son. On the cover of "A Father's Lullaby," Lachey, 39, is pictured cuddling his son Camden, who was born in September 2012. "When I first learned that I was going to be a father, I was inspired to create a special tribute to my son," Lachey said in a statement on Tuesday. ...

For 1st time since 1999, music revenues inch up

LONDON (AP) — More than a decade after online file swapping tipped the music industry into turmoil, record executives may finally be getting a sliver of good news.

Reversing trend, world music revenue inches upward

LONDON (AP) — More than a decade after online file swapping tipped the music industry into turmoil, record executives may finally be getting a sliver of good news.

LG discusses webOS strategy, no current plans for smartphones or tablets

LG (066570) on Monday announced that it had acquired webOS from HP for an undisclosed sum. Earlier reports noted that the two companies were in talks over a potential partnership as of last fall. Bill Veghte, executive VP for software and solutions at HP (HPQ), disclosed certain terms of the deal to AllThingsD on Tuesday. The executive said that the deal includes the source code, documentation, the remaining user experience team and a license to all the associated patents, which HP will retain. Employees who work with the cloud services infrastructure in webOS, however, will stay with HP. Dr. Skott Ahn, president and CEO of LG’s mobile operations, later revealed that his company plans to make the operating system a “core

Alcatel One Touch Fire preview: This anemic Firefox phone might be a tough sell

Another day, another Firefox OS-powered handset here at Mobile World Congress. We had the chance to take a hands-on look at Alcatel’s first Firefox phone on Tuesday and walked away with some distinctly tepid impressions. As a disclaimer, the software we played with was in beta, but Firefox and Alcatel are planning to launch these phones within months, so any performance enhancements they hope to achieve will have to be pushed out relatively quickly. From a hardware perspective, there’s nothing wrong with the One Touch Fire. In fact, its soft-touch back, 3.5-inch capacitive touchscreen with 165 ppi, 3.2-megapixel camera and HSPA radio are nothing to scoff at in the budget phone market. Alcatel is clearly aiming for first-time smartphone users in

PayPal co-founder Levchin launches new mobile payment start-up

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Max Levchin, co-founder of online payment giant PayPal, launched a rival business on Tuesday called Affirm that will compete in the crowded but fast-growing mobile payments business. Affirm's technology helps shoppers complete online purchases more quickly and easily when they are using smart phones and other mobile devices, according to the firm's website. ...

HTC plans to release more Windows Phones in 2013

Despite lukewarm sales of its Windows Phone 8X and Windows Phone 8S, HTC (2498) remains “fully committed” to the Windows Phone operating system. The company’s vice president of global product planning, Tai Ito, said in an interview with CNET on Tuesday that HTC has a “good collaboration with Microsoft for a future release this year.” The executive acknowledged that Windows Phone 8 performance is “not as good as the market expected,” however he believes that after some time consumers will begin to embrace it. Unfortunately, HTC’s upcoming Windows Phones might not feature the same design elements as its new HTC One smartphone, as the executive added that the company is taking a “family approach to separation.”

Music, movie industry to warn copyright infringers

WASHINGTON (AP) — Internet users who illegally share music, movies or TV shows online may soon get warning notices from their service providers that they are violating copyright law. Ignore the notices, and violators could face an Internet slow-down for 48 hours. Those who claim they're innocent can protest — for a fee.

Gates, Zuckerberg champion computer programming in new nonprofit video

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - When Hadi and Ali Partovi immigrated to America from Iran in 1984, they slept in the same cramped bedroom as their parents, who exhausted their life savings on the teenage boys' education. Nearly 30 years later, the twin brothers are firmly planted in the tech industry's elite circles, after selling companies to Microsoft and News Corp's MySpace, and tapping the rare connections to invest early on in Facebook, Dropbox and Zappos. ...

Hands on with NVIDIA’s blazing fast Tegra 4 reference tablet

In a world where frequent technology shifts are commonplace, it’s tough to stand out. Phones are getting bigger and faster with each passing month and crafting a device with real-world performance that truly impresses is a challenging task. While the reference tablet we played with today at NVIDIA’s (NVDA) booth will never reach consumers’ hands, the internals are very much worthy of your attention, as there’s a good chance that they’ll serve as the powerhouse in your next smartphone or tablet. The Tegra 4 is NVIDIA’s newest mobile chipset. Billed as “the world’s fastest mobile processor,” the silicon features four cores, brand-new architecture and 72 GPU cores. The company isn’t releasing exact clockspeed ratings at the moment, but suffice it

Cablevision sues Viacom over fees for low-rated networks

(Reuters) - Cablevision Systems Corp has accused Viacom Inc in an antitrust lawsuit of forcing it to pay for more than a dozen low-rated cable networks in order to get access to Viacom's more popular channels such as Nickelodeon, MTV and Comedy Central. The case represents the latest flare-up in the contentious relationships between distributors and program makers. Industry observers will be watching to see if the lawsuit could disrupt the model of selling bundles of cable channels to operators, a common practice employed by Viacom and its media company peers in the $97. ...